Astronauts back safely on Earth after dangerous reentry goes smoothly

The crew of Integrity waved and saluted for the cameras after a surviving the fiery plunge through Earth’s atmosphere and making a ‘textbook splashdown’
The Artemis II mission astronauts have safely splashed down in the Pacific Ocean after returning from the Moon.

It was a fiery descent lasting about 15 minutes, finishing around 7:07pm ET today.

NASA described it as a “perfect” return to Earth for the Artemis II crew.

The shield was a critical part of the Orion capsule, protecting the crew from exposure to lethal temperatures - reaching up to 5,000 degrees Fahrenheit - during their high-speed descent .

“It’s 13 minutes of things that have to go right,” Jeff Radigan, NASA’s Artemis II flight director, said yesterday.

There were problems with the heat shield on the first Artemis flight, which had no human passengers.

Gases that were generated inside the shield’s outer material were not able to vent as expected, causing cracks .

Since then, the shield has undergone extensive testing and Amit Kshatriya, the space agency’s associate administrator, says his confidence in the tech is backed up by engineering and flight data.

The astronauts — NASA’s Christina Koch, Victor Glover, Reid Wiseman and the Canadian Space Agency’s Jeremy Hansen — were said to be in “high spirits” as they started their journey to Earth following a record-breaking slingshot around the Moon .

In pictures: A triumphant return
More photos of returning astronauts Victor Glover and Christina Koch , who made history this week as the first person of color and the first woman to ever visit lunar space, respectively.

In pictures: The crew of Artemis II
We now have some lovely close-up photos of the returning astronauts, courtesy of NASA photograph Bill Ingalls.

Southern Californians: Did you hear the boom?

Did you hear or feel the sonic boom of Artemis II's reentry as it streaked down towards the Southern California coast?

If so, you should tell the U.S.

Geological Survey about it by filling in this form , according to earthquake scientist Wendy Bohon.

"It will say earthquake, but fill it out for the boom," said Bohon in a post on Bluesky .

'A thousand times better than Star Wars'
NASA's press conference has wrapped up.

We'll hear from the astronauts tomorrow.

One sweet moment was when Times of London reporter Jacqui Goddard asked Orion program director Howard Hu about his childhood love of Star Wars — part of his inspiration for getting into spaceflight.

Was today better for you than Star Wars , asked Goddard?

"I don't know what the number is.

A thousand times better," Hu laughed.

"I mean, I can't even express just how I feel, and the goosebumps I have."
He urged "all the kids out there" to follow what they're passionate about, and hoped that some people inspired by this mission would later join NASA.

"Come work for us!" he said.

"We've got a lot of missions ahead."
What will NASA learn from this test flight?

NASA officials have also addressed what kinks still need to be ironed out after a successful — but not uneventful — test mission.

Chief among them: the pressure control assembly in the Orion crew vehicle's propulsion system, which suffered a non-critical helium leak during spaceflight.

"That is a new finding.

Certainly, we're going to go investigate that," said Orion program manager Howard Hu.

"We're going to make sure that we make some changes if necessary."
Scientists and engineers will also be closely examining the crew module's heat shield, which developed unexpected problems on Artemis but ably protected the astronauts today.

Hu and his colleague Lori Glaze, head of the Artemis program, said NASA was documenting the state of the heat shield in every possible way: aerial photos during reentry, divers wielding cameras, expert exams aboard the ship, and detailed imaging back on land.

But will they be addressing all the troubles the astronauts had with Microsoft Outlook ?

'The families were as brave as the astronauts'
In his press conference, NASA official Amit Kshatriya praised not only the astronauts but their loved ones and all the people who built their vehicles and supported their mission.

Whereas the astronauts were the stars during Monday's lunar fly-by, he said, today the Orion spacecraft itself was the star of the show.

"The vehicle spoke for all of them, and at 25,000 feet per second, it said the work was good.

As we say in our business, physics votes last.”
NASA official: 'This time we'll stay'
NASA officials have said that "the path to the lunar surface is open" after a successful test mission.

In a post-flight press conference, associate administrator Amit Kshatriya hailed the "inspirational" words of the Artemis II crew and praised them for "carr[ying] the torch from Apollo...

around the far side of the moon".

But, he warned: "The work ahead is greater than the work behind us.

It always will be.

"53 years ago, humanity left the moon.

This time we return to stay.

Let us finish what they started.

Let us focus on what was left undone.

Let us not go to plant flags and leave, but to stay...

'It feels like the moon landings of old'
At a watch party aboard the historic USS Hornet , cheers and clapping broke out among the 40-strong crowd when the Artemis II crew splashed down to Earth.

Back in 1969, the Hornet was the aircraft carrier that picked up Neil Armstrong and his crew after they safely returned from humanity's first moon voyage.

Today it's a museum ship moored in Alameda, California.

"It feels like the moon landings of old," the museum's chief experience Russell Moore told The Independent .

"Even though we didn't go to the moon this time, it's still really exciting.

Nobody seemed nervous during the communications blackout, Moore said, although many of the children got restless.

Moore himself did feel some worry, as he vividly remembers when the Space Shuttle Columbia tragically broke up during reentry in 2002, killing all seven crew.

"The capsule was coming down and then it hit the water way faster than we expected.

Everyone kinda jumped and was surprised.

Then the clapping just spread across the room," Moore said.

"It's hard to explain the feeling at that exact moment.

Until they hit the water and they're floating, you're not positive it's going right.

And when they do, you're safe."
NY Mets put splashdown on the Jumbotron
Across the nation, people are reacting just as joyously as the astronauts themselves.

The New York Mets baseball team played footage of the splashdown on their Jumbotron, prompting loud applause and cheers from the stands.

They footage was accompanied by the famous opening fanfare of Richard Strauss's Thus Spake Zarathustra, which was used in the intro to 2001: A Space Odyssey.

NASA's mission recovery director Liliana Villarreal is almost beyond words as she absorbs the safe return of Artemis II.

"I'm so ecstatic.

Relieved," she said.

"Our team has been preparing and working really hard, and I'm just so proud of them all."
She says that when her teams got inside the capsule, the astronauts were already out of their seats and "having a good time".

They took selfies with the recovery workers, sparking "smiles all round."
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